I am continually amazed at the blatant stupidity displayed by the board of directors of most major corporations.
Chrysler is in the process of destroying their historical records and it looks like GM may be looking at doing the same.
Click the link for the whole story.

The first spreadsheet was called Visicalc and was released 30 years ago. I tend to agree with this article on the subject.
In fact, the spreadsheet has resulted in the rise of the once-lowly accountant/bean counter to a position of influence—and often the executive suite. How often in years past—the pre-spreadsheet era, that is—did an accountant take over a company? When and why did the CFO become a title? These people, at best, were once known as comptrollers.

I surely hope the citizens of Kenneth City inform the idiots that suggested this ordinance that tarring and feathering is still a good idea for government officials that are totally out of control.

The proposal basically sets standards for upkeep and appearance and gives town officials the right to enter homes. If the owner refuses to allow the official to enter, the town can go to a judge for an "administrative search warrant" to allow access to the interior of buildings. Violations would cost up to $250 a day.

It appears as if the EU has finally lost it's collective mind. Instead of issuing educational guidelines for noise and allowing people to make informed decisions, they have banned loud music, including bagpipes and rock bands.
As usual, the big brother types say it is for your own good and they are just taking care of you.

From this Wall Street Journal article:
"The ink is still moist on Capitol Hill's latest energy bill and, as if on cue, a scientific avalanche is demolishing its assumptions. To wit, trendy climate-change policies like ethanol and other biofuels are actually worse for the environment than fossil fuels. Then again, Washington's energy neuroses are more political than practical, so it's easy for the Solons and greens to ignore what would usually be called evidence."

There is a competition with a $25,000 first prize for the most brake horsepower developed by a street machine running standard pump gas. This year's first prize is NOT your run-of-the-mill 1964 Ramblers.

From this article on government waste:
"Does one American in a thousand know that the Federal government is buying 23 VIP helicopters, each one of which will cost more than the extravagantly expensive F-22 fighter aircraft? A half-billion dollar helicopter—a half billion dollars each! — to ferry political hacks to their campaign events?"

In this article, written By: Christopher Monckton, Denpasar, Bali
Published In: News Releases - Publication Date: December 5, 2007

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22430

The author was the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize with Al Gore and yet shares little of his enthusiasm for the panic.

"Two detailed investigations by Committees of the House confirm that the IPCC has deliberately, persistently and prodigiously exaggerated not only the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature but also the environmental consequences of warmer weather."

He continues to state that which has been obvious to anyone that has really done the math...

"The shore-dwellers of Bali need not fear for their homes. The IPCC now says the combined contribution of the two great ice-sheets to sea-level rise will be less than seven centimeters after 100 years, not seven meters imminently, and that the Greenland ice sheet (which thickened by 50 cm between 1995 and 2005) might only melt after several millennia, probably by natural causes, just as it last did 850,000 years ago. Gore, mendaciously assisted by the IPCC bureaucracy, had exaggerated a hundredfold."

Why is it that I'm not really surprised that up to 80% of management software for controlling armed military robots has been outsourced? Maybe I'm too paranoid... What do you think?
Future Combat Systems Programmed Outside US!

"Southern Baptist Convention presidential candidate Wiley Drake called on Baptists to pray for God's wrath to fall on Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which called for the IRS to probe Drake for making political statements barred by the IRS code. Drake in a statement Tuesday called for "imprecatory prayer" on two communications staffers of the group."

This is more properly called a curse and just reaffirms my belief that the only difference between a fundamentalist baptist and the taliban is one of terminology.

Of course climate is changing, the Earth is ALWAYS changing...

"Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?

A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?

Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…

A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide."

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html

Lies, damn lies and statistics!
"...among the 45 most highly cited clinical research findings of the past 15 years, 99 percent of molecular research had subsequently been refuted. Epidemiology findings had been contradicted in four-fifths of the cases he looked at, and the usually robust outcomes of clinical trials had a refutation rate of one in four."


You can read the full story on this dirty little secret at:
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/05/dirty_little_secret.php

In a recent online conversation among computer geeks, it was noted that if you take any of the current climate analysis software and plug in the real data between 1950 and 1970, it will NOT accurately forecast what ocurred between 1970 and 1990. And yet, we are betting our future safety and economy on predictions these same programs are making right now. The bottom line is that we really do NOT kow what is going on. We can't even accurately predict El Nino events.

Love him or loathe him, he nailed this one right on the head...

By Rush Limbaugh:

I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country. If you lost a family member in the September 11 attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.
If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable.

Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people who are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 milli on are complaining that it's not enough Their deaths were tragic, but for most, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers put themselves in harms way FOR ALL OF US, and they and their families know the dangers.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation a s well.

You see where this is going, don't you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country. It's just really sad. Every time a pay raise comes up for the military, they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low-rent housing Make sense?

However, our own US Congress voted themselves a raise. Many of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month. And most are now equal to being millionaires plus. They do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system. If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, they may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed them in harm's way receives a pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

Many years ago, the great Science Fiction author Robert Heinlein predicted "the Crazy Years" when things started falling apart. Some of these articles seem to show he was more prophetic than we care to admit.

Court rules that a computer program is an Articficial Intelligence that is practicing law without a license.

Islamic court orders 90 lashes to a rape victim for being alone with a man in a car.

France bans public citizens from recording violence. Only licensed professionals may film violence.